


Mary Dies at the End

by sleepyliger



Category: Chrno Crusade
Genre: Aion POV, Alternate Universe - Chrono Gets Tuned, Demon Civil War, Established Relationship, Gen, Having Pandy in your Brain is not Great, M/M, Mental Health Issues, Pre-1870, pandemonium
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-02-06
Updated: 2020-03-27
Packaged: 2021-02-28 03:41:20
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 3
Words: 7,793
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22587301
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sleepyliger/pseuds/sleepyliger
Summary: What if Chrono got tuned, instead of Aion?Exploring an alternate timeline because I think it's interesting.EDIT: Fixed some MAJOR fuckery with the html in ch. 2. Not sure what happened there.
Relationships: Aion/Chrono (Chrno Crusade), Aion/Chrono/Mary Magdaline
Comments: 7
Kudos: 9





	1. Chrono's POV

Something was screaming, and it was ripping his mind apart. 

He couldn’t see it because he couldn’t see anything. He knew he was practically fetal, and that he was clutching his horns as astral scraped against his synapses, turning them raw. Somehow, the sound was inside him. Inside his mind. It was familiar and disgusting but at the moment, he couldn't think of where he’d known this feeling before, or why it was happening again now. 

He could hear other sounds too, but with his actual ears, but it was mostly more screaming. It might have been him, but he thought that other people were screaming too. Someone- it was warm and shaking, it had to be a person- was writing against his side in agony. When he tried to tentatively touch their mind with his, to know who it was, he was rewarded with the ripping feeling in his head increasing twofold, almost knocking him unconscious and definitely condemning him to death.

Something was happening with- time. It was like it was splintering. He couldn’t tell if it was him or the screaming doing it. Maybe both. Some kind of bad reaction. It felt like a record skip- one moment of screaming stuttered into the next and didn’t match up the way it should have. One moment the person next to him was pressed up to his side hip to shoulder and then suddenly gone like they’d never been there at all. 

He tried getting to his feet and bashed his head on something above him. He groped for whatever it was and found an edge. It was steady enough, more steady than his legs, and it worked well as a lever for him to push himself up. He had to squeeze between- he guessed it was a wall, it felt like one. Leaning against it kept him upright. 

He reached out a hand to try and use his power to stop it in time and should have known better. The splitting in his head came again, far, far, worse than last time. His body felt like it was going to rip. He could feel something warm and viscous dripping down his face that he assumed was his own blood. 

Stopping it wasn’t going to work, so he braced his hands against the wall behind him and then pushed, lunging toward the source of the inhuman screeching. 

Surprisingly, it was much closer than he would have thought. Or maybe that was just time going wrong again. He only had his claws, but he used them. He tore at the thing. Shredded it viciously, and felt its blood gushing over his hands. Limbs of some kind failed at him, trying to defend itself, and the screaming only got more intense, but he didn’t dare stop. 

Distantly, he thought that if it still had claws, it would have ripped him in half, just like Rizelle had been. 

Finally, the sound started weakening. It probably wasn’t using its throat to produce that sound, but lacking a throat probably didn’t help keep it screeching. It tapered off, wavering at the end like it was at the last of its’ breath. 

Pandemonium was dead, again, and he could think straight. Mostly. His head was pounding. He almost let himself collapse straight into the gore he knew was in front of him, but something at his most base instinctual level repelled him. He threw himself sideways instead. 

For a moment he just stayed like that. He let himself breathe as his vision started returning. He had to keep blinking, as plenty of blood had gotten into his eyes. He saw some of it. The carnage he’d created. There was plenty of blood. He thought he might see some hair in there too. He shut his eyes, tight. 

Nausea rose up inside him, and he turned over onto his stomach just in time to vomit. His head still hurt so much. Was anyone else here? Had Pandemonium killed them from the inside, as she’d almost done to him? He had survived once, he knew he could do it again, but the others… Even Aion had barely survived her, on Eden. 

Not to mention how she would have affected humans. What about Ewan? Or Mary- 

He tried to follow that thought, and couldn’t. Something was stopping him from reaching whatever inevitable conclusion was waiting on the other side of his mental roadblock. 

Suddenly, a hand grabbed him, twisted its fingers into the clothes nearest to his neck and pulled. He was yanked to the side, away from what remained of Pandemonium, and dragged several feet back. 

Chrono realized that his hearing must have been affected by Pandemonium too because it felt like he should be hearing something clearly, but it was muffled. Like he was swimming underwater and someone was talking to him 100 feet away. 

He looked, and it was Aion. His hand was fisted in Chrono’s clothes and he was crouched on his hands and knees and he was alive. If his limbs didn’t already feel like jelly, they would have at the sheer relief that swept through him. He looked awful. His hair was matted together with blood, so much so that the purple color was beginning to look black. It stuck to his face. Chrono wanted to sweep it off, but moving his arms was too difficult. 

Aion had given up trying to say whatever it was he had been yelling at Chrono. He pulled on Chrono again until he was practically in Aion’s lap. He was clearly terrified if his wide eyes were anything to go by. His hands didn't shake though. They never did, their instructors had trained that out of them when they were very young. 

Chrono felt something start to happen. There was some itching at the edge of his awareness. Aion’s head snapped from Chrono to Pandemonium and Chrono knew he felt it too.

It was… pulsing almost. It was still alive.

Chrono rolled his head around, falling off Aion’s lap. He caught himself on one arm. Pandemonium was- somehow- recovering itself. But so slowly Chrono couldn’t even see it. He just felt it happening. 

He panicked. It couldn’t come back. Not again, not for a third time. He had to stop it- now, before-

As he felt Aion start to yell something again, maybe calling out a warning to whoever else was in the room with them, Chrono raised his hand again. He drew on whatever Astral he had left inside of him and stopped Pandemonium in time.

Then, he blacked out.


	2. Pandemonium, 1869

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Aion and Chrono get bored and then sentimental shortly before everything falls to pieces.

Pandemonium 1869

The age difference between him and Chrono had never really mattered to Aion. Mostly because it was so miniscule- a few minutes- that it hardly ever came up. 

It had mattered to him more when he had been younger. Pandemonium was a place of rules and structure and protocol. Adults would crouch down in front of him dozens of times, each more exasperated than last, and remind him that Chrono was his older brother, and that he should respect that.

Which hadn’t made sense. He did respect Chrono. He loved Chrono. They were each other’s best friend, from before he could even remember. If Chrono felt better tagging along behind him, searching for Aion in crowds, holding his hand- wouldn’t it have been worse not to let him? If adults thought respect was pushing someone away from them, scolding them for not acting correctly, well. They had to be wrong, that’s all.

It mattered less once Aion had decided that. And the adults left off it as more and more years had passed. When it became obvious that they were both stubborn, and not going to change in this way any time soon, if ever. Especially when the younger siblings decided that they had two eldest brothers, not just one. 

Which was silly, because it was impossible. But in an endearing sort of way.

And it wasn’t as if Chrono was a bad big brother. The oldest were meant to be role-models. And so, he was. He went to his lessons everyday and learned to fight and use his own unique abilities and kept his big mouth shut around everyone who wasn’t Aion.

“You’re frowning again~” 

Aion couldn’t help but grin as Chrono straightened his back immediately, face smoothing. He thought he was so inconspicuous. 

“You’re being too loud,” Chrono muttered through a corner of his mouth. He didn’t take his eyes off Elder Baltic, who was still droning on to the crowd in front of him.

“No one’s paying attention to us anyway,” Aion responded. Which was true, if a little surprising, seeing as this whole thing was ostensibly for the two of them. Tomorrow was to be their Tuning day. Today was a precursor. Apparently there was a lot of ceremony involved. Lots of speeches, lots of naming of names and very important people gathering to make sure they were seen. 

‘Apparently’, because Aion had never actually seen a Tuning happen before. Neither had Chrono, nor their dozens and dozens of younger siblings. He’d only read about them, in the lessons specifically put together to teach you what to do and what not to do on your very own Tuning day. 

Chrono had asked once why there were no recordings of old Tunings that they could watch. Wouldn’t that have prepared them better? Instructor Kil had narrowed her eyes and and said that something as sacred as a Tuning should not be cheapened as study material. And that he would be best served not to question practices that had such obvious reasons. 

Chrono had frowned, then waited until she turned her back on the two of them to flash his canines at Aion in annoyance and grumble into his tablet. 

So really, Aion had expected to be a lot more interested in actually seeing a Tuning. But that was dumb, because obviously the Elders ruined everything by bogging it down with ceremony and making it as boring as possible. It was his Tuning night! Tomorrow he and Chrono enter the tanks and resurface as adults, and he couldn’t be less enthused. 

The Elders couldn’t ruin everything, though. This would be the only time - possibly in their entire lives- that they would be directly in contact with the Queen. You could never see her, because she was always in the main chamber, deep in the center of Pandemonium; and you could always feel her, thanks to the horns that connected all her children to her, but the communication only went one way. For the first and only time- the two of you could speak.

That, at least, would be very interesting. 

But that was tomorrow. Today, he kept himself busy by leaning as close to Chrono as he reasonably could and running a nail up Chrono’s arm until he shivered and swatted Aion away. 

On the raised dias in front of the crowd, Elder Baltic finally seemed to be wrapping up. 

“-and tomorrow, we will welcome your brothers into the Great Cycle, where they will take their place among our siblings, both present and past, and confirm their relationship with Pandemonium. As some day, all of you will do as well.” He let that sink in in a way he probably thought was very poignant and exciting. A few rows down, Aion could see Genai shifting impatiently from foot-to-foot.

One of the other Elders signalled that they were now dismissed, and the silence of the crowd broke abruptly. No one would dare sigh and groan when the Elder’s were so close, but they murmured to each other as they left in groups, walking and flying back to the dorms. Some stayed to find friends and make plans for the next day, which would technically be a free day, after the tuning. Aion figured he could at least stretch his arms behind his head without offending the Council. 

“No- let’s walk.” Chrono said, as Aion made to spread his wings and fly off with the rest of their siblings.

“You want to walk? That’ll take forever. Why walk when you have these?” He grinned again and spread his wings. They weren’t real, because only lucky ones were actually born with wings, but he felt like he’d gotten pretty good at designing a balance between form and fashion. Chrono kicked him in the shin.

“That’s exactly the point. It’s the last night before we’re tuned, you don’t want it to last a little longer…?” Chrono was playing coy. Well, he probably wasn’t playing. But either way, what a tease.

Aion pretended to be affronted. “Student Chrono! You aren’t suggesting we run off into the woods for illicit nighttime activities, are you?”

“Why is everything illicit with you?” Chrono’s cheeks puffed out the way they did when he was annoyed.

“Oh, so you weren’t suggesting that.” Aion deflated. “Well now I’m not so sure. Sitting on cold grass and staring at the Tuning chamber sounds a lot less fun than eating dinner.” 

Chrono rocked back and forth on his heels and smiled a little. “Even i you’d be doing it with me?”

Again, what a tease.

* * *

They didn't end up sitting on cold grass, or staring into the Tuning chamber, thank Her Grace. Instead, they tucked themselves into an abandoned part of Pandemonium. The structures here were decomposing, but the main sections would hold up another hand-full of years. 

It wasn’t actually very far away from the dorms. Their siblings had made it a habit alongside them to come here whenever they got tired of being under the watchful eyes of their minders. But today had been long and tomorrow would be busy, so Aion and Chrono had the place to themselves, for once. 

There was a building that had been half-reclaimed by legion and plants, but had likely once been some kind of dining hall or cafeteria. It was squat and long, with many doorways to enter through from any direction, and a separate room in the back where those assigned would make the day’s food. There were still plenty of long tables left behind, meant to feed many. But they had been dragged around and repositioned by idle teenagers for so long that many of them had collapsed. The rest were scattered like toys in the nursery playrooms. 

Aion grabbed one, lifted it effortlessly over his head, and dropped it at the ‘back’ of the hall, where they could gaze over the completely empty space. Chrono sat on top of the table, cross-legged. Aion sat on the table too, and learned back against the wall behind his head. When Chrono scooted over, so that his knee touched Aion’s thigh, Aion tried not to let Chrono see him smirking.

“Stop that.” Chrono poked him in the side. “You always think I’m making a move.”

“Aren’t you?”

Chrono looked at him in a flat way that said, ‘I’ll leave right now, you know.’ Then he picked up Aion’s hand and threaded their fingers together. Rested them on his lap. Aion’s heart squeezed painfully so he let Chrono know it by squeezing his hand. 

They didn’t say much for a while. It was strange to be alone together here, but they were very it being together in general. And Pandemonium could be beautiful at night. The seams in the ceiling panels that made up the sky were practically invisible in this light. And the tiny artificial constellations distracted your eye from them either way. Aion could see them through the hole where the cafeteria’s roof had been.

Chrono said, “Are you nervous?”

“About tomorrow?” Maybe. Being tuned wasn’t something you did every day, after all. Or ever again. Even the younger generations would have the comfort of numbers. A single generation was considered ‘adults’ on the same day, regardless of when they had actually hatched. But he and Chrono were a generation all their own. “A little.” Aion chuckled. “But, it’ll be over and done with in less than half an hour. The shortest Tuning in history.”

Chrono laughed too, but it was weak. He’d been anxious about the Tuning for months. Possibly his entire life. “Over and done with. Right.” He was messing with Aion’s fingers. Rubbing them restlessly. “Easy for you to say, you don’t have to go first.”

“Second is much more terrible than first, I’ll have you know.”

Chrono smiled, and at least this time it seemed more sincere. “Why?”

“The anticipation! You don’t even know what tomorrow will be like, but I have to stand there for entire minutes.” Aion shook his head. “Terrible.”

Chrono laughed. “You just said it would be over and done with!”

“Well, maybe I was exaggerating a little.”

Chrono scoffed and fell silent again, but now he seemed lighter. Aion prided himself on his ability to cheer Chrono up, and preened at the little smirk on Chrono’s face. Eventually, Chrono shifted and and curled closer to Aion, knees tucked. He pushed his head into Aion’s neck and they rested together like that, hands still held. 

“...I really love you, Aion. I’m still going to after tomorrow. I promise,” Chrono whispered.

It made Aion jittery and warm all at once. Chrono was better at being blatant like this. Aion could admit that much to himself. Saying something like that, sincerely, felt like giving something important up, even if he wanted to give it up to begin with. The feeling annoyed him more than anything, so he usually forced himself to ignore it.

“Never doubted it for a second.” He leaned a little forward to see Chronos face, because it was harder to say when he looked into Chrono’s eyes. “Always. Really. I’ll always love you. No matter what.”

Chrono’s smile this time was blinding, and Aion could have melted on the spot. A little later, when Chrono was sitting on Aion’s thighs as they kissed, Aion let himself picture it. Them as adults. Together and in love, even decades from now.

* * *

So no, Aion had never bothered worrying about protocol or three minutes difference in births or who was eldest or anything of that sort. It didn’t matter. Chrono was his and he was Chrono’s and they would never let each other forget it.

But the next day, it occurred to him that he really should have. He should have taken it seriously. Taken it into consideration. Thought harder on all those warnings adults had given him as a child. 

Because in Pandemonium, things like that did matter. It didn’t let you forget it, even when you ignored it all your life. Even when all your friends forgot about it. Even when all the adults stopped sighing over it. 

And when Chrono had finished listening silently to Elder NAME, head bowed, he had stripped- as one was supposed to- and entered the Tuning chamber and was the first one to enter because he was the first one to be born. The unlucky one. The experiment, because there was no practice run for the Tuning. You didn’t know what was going to happen. How to prepare yourself. What She would do.

Aion thought of that, as it became obvious that something had gone horribly wrong. As Chrono crouched on the floor, holding his horns and screaming, Elders surrounding him. As Aion bashed his fist against the glass of the Tuning hall and screamed as well. As their friends and siblings panicked around him.

Chrono was bleeding from the eyes and his ears and nose and every orifice in his skull and all Aion could think was, ‘I’m so fucking stupid.’

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A little fluff before the actual story starts. I kinda wanted to flesh out how Pandemonium worked before we trash the place. It ended up a little cult-y, but that's... probably not incorrect.


	3. We All Fall Down

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Everything goes a little more to hell. Chrono actually explains something for probably the first time in his entire life.

On that day, hundreds had come to watch the Tuning ceremony. All the children were present because they had to be, but a significant amount of adults had come too. Aion knew many of them, even the adults. Most of them teachers, current or former. All of them celebrating the Tuning as a sign that Chrono and Aion would achieve a rank higher than the Elder’s, maybe even replace them. None of them would have expected an attack. 

The doors of the Tuning hall opened. Beside it, a small crowd of onlookers had gathered, Aion included. People were panicking. Chrono had collapsed as soon as he exited the Tuning tank, bleeding and clutching his head, insensate. 

Through the doors charged dozens of soldiers. They were only there because the Elders took a small retinue of soldiers with them wherever they went. Rarely, if ever, were they meant to act. Certainly not against Pandemonium’s citizens. 

For one moment, Aion thought they were just there as crowd control. But they swept past the group standing at the Tuning hall as if they didn’t see them. Instead they charged into the surrounding field, where most of the spectator’s still stood. And then-

One soldier, fully outfitted in armor, raised their sword and brought it down. Right into the neck of a child.

Aion had turned just in time to have seen it. One moment his head was attached. The next, not. 

For a moment, no one moved. Then the child’s head hit the ground with a sickening sound Aion was sure he would remember the rest of his life. Someone screamed. Then everyone was screaming. Screaming and running as the rest of the soldiers spread throughout the crowd, reaching for other children. 

Rizelle snapped out of it first. She twisted suddenly and grabbed Aion’s arm with both hands, her grip so hard her nails dug into his arm. She tried to run, yanking Aion behind her. She was strong enough- and Aion shocked enough- that she actually pulled him a few good feet before Aion dug in his heels and twisted his wrist out of her hands.

“Wait- fuck-” Aion was back at the door to the Tuning chamber in an instant. They were tall and smooth, the sort of careful, clean design reserved for important buildings. He dug his fingers painfully into the almost invisible seam of the doors and pulled. The doors protested, grinding against the floors and ceiling as he put his back into it. He’d never had to force a door open like this before. 

For one second, he risked glancing up from his task to look inside the Tuning chamber. Aion couldn’t see Chrono, just the back of the Elders. Some of them were battle-ready in their armor, surrounding the last spot Aion had seen Chrono. Whatever adrenaline was already pumping through his body spiked, and he ripped the doors apart in a single jerk. There was one last screech from the doors before they permanently broke. 

Aion scrambled into the chamber, sword drawn. The Tuning chamber was large, hexagonal, and domed. For all that the Tuning was meant to be sacred, towering windows and transparent doors lined the rotation of the room, allowing for easy viewing for any audience outside. There were several tuning tanks embedded into the floor, but the Elders had been feeling grand, and had insisted Aion and Chrono would go one at a time.

Speaking of the Elders, many of them had turned when the door had screeched open. Elder Nyx cursed, quietly. His attention was torn between Aion behind him, and Chrono, who Aion could see standing in the back of the chamber, past the tuning tanks. Not all of the Elders were soldiers, of course, and Nyx was one of the unlucky ones in this case. In fact, he oversaw agriculture both inside Pandemonium and out. He probably hadn’t expected to be stuck in the middle of a standoff. 

Only three of the ten Elders were former soldier caste at all. Two of them kept their weapons on Chrono, but the other, Keerla, turned on Aion. Braced her sword. Outside were all the guards that should supposedly be rushing in here at the sight of Aion forcing the door open, sword drawn. Aion wondered what combination of luck and horror was happening outside to have let him do that. 

“Aion,” Elder Keerla sounded apprehensive, how interesting, “put that away. As you can see, we’re having a bit of a situation here ourselves.” She gestured with her chin toward Chrono. 

With everyone so still, Aion took a moment to glance around. With a jolt, he realized that the room was dotted with Elders who hadn’t turned, not because of fear or lack of interest, but because they had been frozen in time where they stood. 

“I was wondering what the hold up was…” Aion said. Time-stopping took effort from Chrono’s end. If nothing else, Chrono was well enough to take down some of the bastards. Elder Baltic and Elder Aimar were standing too close to Chrono for Aion to see anything else. 

Predictably, Elder Keerla tried to take advantage of Aion’s distraction to charge forward. Aion, who hadn’t dropped his sword since he ran in here, prepared to deflect her blade and almost tripped on his own feet as she stopped unnaturally, arms poised mid-swing. Lifeless. Chrono wasn’t just reacting to threats against himself.

‘Screw this,’ Aion thought. No one else was attacking anyway, and the guards outside could run in at any minute. He ran around Keerla’s body in a huff, then took off, wings spread, toward Chrono. None of the other Elders tried to stop him, too afraid of being Chrono’s next victim. 

Elder Aimar was slightly closer to Aion. He hadn’t acknowledged Aion once, but that was likely because he didn’t expect Aion to plunge his sword into his back, which was precisely what Aion did. Then, Aion braced himself, changed his grip, and sliced through Aimar’s spine before he could finish yelling. It wouldn’t kill him, but he wasn’t going anywhere until his legion rallied. 

There were curses and gasps around the room. Elder Baltic bit off a curse of his own, throwing himself backward away from the spray of blood. “How dare you! To attack your Brother is treason, Aion!”

Aion wanted to laugh. He didn’t. Admittedly, it was disturbing how easy that’d been. He’d deal with that later. For now, his attention was arrested by Chrono. 

Chrono was standing, backed up against the end of the chamber, and bleeding, but definitely alive. He clutched one of his horns in his hand like it ached him. Chrono’s other arm was outstretched threateningly in front of him. 

But his breathing wasn’t steady. His whole body twitched and shook. He was panting between gritted teeth, eyes darting from Aimar’s fallen form to Aion. And- somehow most alarmingly- Chrono’s hair was changing color. The purple was leeching out of it from the root down, leaving it an unnaturally pristine white. 

Aion had never seen anything like it. Had never even heard of it. Legion were flexible by nature, but there was a core form that they always yearned to return to. Unless you were lucky enough to be a shape-shiter, things like altering mass or color took hard practice that usually wasn’t worth it. And it wasn’t the least bit permanent. This- didn’t look purposeful. 

Very carefully, Aion put himself between Baltic and Chrono, sword still ready, aware every second he did so that Chrono wasn’t in his right mind, and that any hostile move from anyone in the hall could trigger Chrono. 

“What have you done to him?” Aion asked. He tried to keep his voice low, dangerous, and was decently happy with his effort. 

“Us?” Elder Baltic laughed incredulously, “This was his doing! And look how he reacts now, when he’s faced with the consequences.” Baltic didn’t actually gesture around the room, but it was implied. “But I see how the two of you are now. I vouched for you two, you know. But a bastard then is a bastard now.”

Chrono’s breathing picked up from behind Aion, almost gasping. Aion didn’t have the faintest idea what Elder Baltic was on about. Still, “But in my gratitude, I should lay down and die, is it?”

Elder Baltic smiled, all teeth. “Exactly.”

Suddenly there was a whimper from Chrono and a spark of visible astral that Aion could see even from behind his back. Baltic swung, Aion parried, and suddenly they were fighting in earnest. There was no room for tricky maneuvers or flying high to gain high ground. Instead, they were forcing each other back and around in circles. On one turn Aion saw that whatever the spark had been, it brought Chrono too his knees, double bent in agony. The other Elders had wisely decided to clear out of the way. 

Elder Baltic was an experienced fighter, but he was also retired. Elders weren’t meant to be running around swinging weapons, and Baltic probably hadn’t practiced since he was a general. Whatever skill he had as a fighter, Aion made up in youth. And, admittedly, skill and practice of his own. 

As one exchange ended and another began, Elder Baltic paid less attention to his footwork. Aion thrust his sword from below, where Baltic was wide open, and finally drove his sword deep into Baltic. He choked, and instinct told Aion to drive his sword in further, until he couldn’t breath at all. 

He pulled his sword out. Debated severing Baltic’s head and being done with this. 

“Aion…” Chrono was calling him. He had gathered himself enough to stand, though still slightly crooked. Aion spared Baltic one more look, and then went to Chrono.

By now, Chrono’s hair had finished it’s transformation. It was still long and straight, but totally white. Aion took him by the shoulders and looked into his eyes. “We need to get out of here.”

* * *

Whatever was wrong with Chrono was affecting his control over his legion. Running around naked in a fight was probably the dumbest thing imaginable, so Aion ended up making Chrono some clothes from his own cells. It gave Aion a pit in his stomach. Chrono was powerful and competent, and right now he couldn’t make a pair of pants. 

Chrono still was bleeding, though it looked like it was slowing down. Every so often a drop would slip from a corner of his eye or nose or worse, his horns. Aion tried to look on the bright side. At least it was healing at all. Chrono obviously was damaged, but from what? As far as he had seen, none of the Elders had so much as touched Chrono, and nothing they would have done would keep him bleeding this long. 

When Chrono didn’t move to wipe the blood away, Aion did it for him. 

The moment they stepped outside, Rizelle was yelling Aion’s name. She was still standing on the top of the short staircase that led into the Tuning chamber. But now, Aion could see gossamer spider threads extending, razor sharp, from her fingers. 

This apparently, was the answer to why he hadn’t been tackled from the doors the moment he touched them. While he ran inside, Rizelle, Genai, and Viede had stayed to fight the soldiers back. Aion could see the other two further away, fluidly fighting together. You’d never expect it, given how often they argued. Beside Rizelle was Shader, crouched and shaking and- absurdly- clutching one of Viede’s guns. 

The idiots had stayed out here, fighting, with a terrified tech, instead of running to safety. Not one of them was Tuned. They had just seen their siblings being gutted in front of them, and would know that doing this could kill them all.

Aion was so intensely grateful he could have cried. 

Shader was staring at Chrono. “What happened? Is he-”

“No,” Aion answered. “Later. The Elders will recover soon and who knows what the rest of the city is like.” He took the gun from Shader, and she groaned and flattened her hands over her ears right before he started firing the gun into the air.

It caught Genai and Viede’s attention. It also caught the attention of the soldiers fighting them. “Chrono can’t fly. The second Viede and Genai get back here, we’ll have to make a run for it,” Aion said. 

The soldiers they escaped, somehow. Not that there were many places to escape to in Pandemonium. That had never been much of a problem, until now. 

The siblings that survived the attack, however many of them that was, had a headstart on Aion’s group. They wouldn’t have fled somewhere obvious. The school and the dormitories were out. An Instructor or Minder might have sheltered the kids in their own home, but Aion couldn’t imagine that as a lasting solution. Nor did he know which instructors had survived themselves, or be willing to stick their neck out like that. 

In fact, the only place Aion could think to take cover in was the dead zones. The abandoned sections of Pandemonium. They lacked surveillance, as electricity was difficult to maintain in areas where plant legion ate away anything manufactured. And most anything interesting or important had been gutted from the areas when they were first abandoned. If teenagers had found them useful hiding places before, they probably would again.

That first night, they didn’t find anyone. They did find an old transporter. It was large enough to have transported groups- or maybe just a lot of cargo. But it was several models old, and it’s legion were almost totally dead, till struggling to repair a sizable tear in the ship’s hull. The huge ship was mostly upside down, like it’d been tossed there by a gigantic, low-ranked laborer. 

They huddled under it. Viede had lifted one side of the ship up high enough for the rest of them to skitter underneath. At the very least, no one flying overhead would see them. By then, night had started. It was almost a surprise to see it change right on schedule. Maybe there really was a timer, like Genai always insisted.

They didn’t have any light. A fire would be idiotic, and a dead give-away for their location. None of them dared turn on their tablet. 

They could technically still see, but night-vision was relatively unpleasant, and barely adequate with such weak light filtering through the weak seams of the transporter. The world lost some of it’s clarity. It’s sharpness, it’s color. It made them tense, but at least it kept them from scattering. Aion felt like an Instructor himself, counting heads and making sure no one charged into the darkness. Shader was the first one to speak. 

“I don’t…” She had pulled herself into a ball, tail tucked across her ankles. “I don’t understand what happened. Were they only attacking kids? A-and why now? Why wait until the Tuning? Why- raise us, if they were just going to...” Her voice faltered. She was already the youngest of them. And the smallest. But tucked up like this, she could have been a child again.

“I only saw what happened afterward,” Viede said. “There wasn’t an explanation.” 

Aion sighed through his nose. There wasn’t enough room to pace, but he wanted to anyway. “Not giving an explanation and not having one are two different things. I would hope the Elders aren’t doing this for ‘fun’. But hey, maybe it is.” It wasn’t a great joke. It barely counted as a joke at all. He was already kicking himself for it when Rizelle’s voice broke the awkward silence. 

“Well-” Rizelle was leaning against a wall, arms crossed. “Someone might know…” She didn’t say anything else, but her brief glance toward Chrono was enough.

As one, they turned and looked at him. Chrono had sat himself so far from the rest of the group he was nearly outside. He didn’t tuck himself against any surface, but hunched near the hull rip, legs crossed, hands on his feet. 

He hadn’t been- well, he wasn’t better, but stable was probably a good word for what Chrono was. He’d stopped clutching his horns, at least. But he also hadn’t said anything since Aion’s name. And he’d been distant. From all of them. He wouldn’t look any of them in the eye. In the face, even. Their friends had looked warily at Aion, questions in their eyes about Chrono’s hair, his rapidly darkening skin, but Aion had silently shook his head and one-by-one they dropped it. 

Chrono didn’t react to their stares. 

“Knowing the reason isn’t important,” Aion said, drawing their attention back to himself before anyone could do something stupid. “Understanding it won’t change what’s happening.”

Silence again. It was probably too soon to say something like that, but it didn’t make it less true. All of them could be dead by tomorrow.

“I knew him…” Shader’s voice was even quieter than before. Almost whispering. “He was one of the trainee techs in the class below me. His name was Sven.” She stared at her feet. Aion wouldn’t be surprised if she was crying again.

Genai scratched his scalp irritably, cursing under his breath. “I didn’t really look to see who else was uh- ‘culled’ I guess. Wasn’t crazy rich on time.”

Rizelle pushed his shoulder. “Don’t fucking call it that,” she said, without any heat behind it.

“Well I don’t know what to call that shit…” Genai grumbled. 

There was another awkward break in conversation. At this rate they were never going to get anywhere. Aion thought that, then realized he didn’t actually have a ‘where’ for them to go. He rubbed at the exposed bit of forehead between his minor eyes- the red, jewel-like ones.

There was a shuffling noise, and everyone turned again towards Chrono. He had unfolded himself from the ground and was crouching instead. He froze for a moment at everyone’s gaze, then ducked under the exposed part of the ship and slipped outside.

“Uh-” Genai instinctively tried to stand and bashed his head on a piece of exposed metal. Hissing, he dropped right back down, clutching his skull, as the rest of them winced. 

“I’ll get him,” Aion said. He had to do a bit of a squat walk to avoid suffering the same fate as Genai. As Aion bent under the hull he saw Rizelle checking Genai’s head, scolding him all the while.

* * *

Thankfully, Chrono hadn’t been trying to ditch them and run. He was only a little ways off, under some trees that hadn’t been ripped down when the flyer was thrown into them. Chrono’s arms were crossed, and he was pacing. It wasn’t the hyperactive, finicky sort of pacing from someone waiting for terrible news, but the slow, plodding walk of someone about to deliver the terrible news. 

Chrono glanced toward Aion while he paced, so he at least knew Aion was there. He didn’t stop pacing. Aion checked the sky and moved under the tree cover. He made sure there was plenty of distance between himself and Chrono, then leaned against a tree and waited. And watched.

The white hair still made Aion uneasy, but under the low night-light it shined. It looked beautiful, and he felt guilty for thinking that. Not that guilt would make it less beautiful, but it felt rather like admiring someone’s gruesome injury. Something better kept to yourself. 

Gradually, the pacing slowed, then stopped, with Chrono facing Aion. Head still down, arms still tightly crossed. For a little while they just breathed and listened to the wind, and the soft sounds of the friends voices from inside the ship. 

“I have to tell you something.” Chrono’s voice was barely more than a whisper itself. It didn’t sound croaky, or sore, like Aion had half expected. Maybe Chrono was just trying to keep from being overheard by the others. “It’s- something bad. It’s a lot of terrible, horrible things, and I’m not sure where to start.”

Aion readjusted against his tree. It wasn’t like he’d been expecting good news. “Okay…” He could hear the question in his own voice. 

“So I’m just going to start talking. And you’re going to have to stay over there and be quiet and let me say all of it until- until I’m done. Okay?”

When Aion didn’t answer, Chrono finally lifted his head and looked at him. He nodded, once, to show he understood, and Chrono licked his lips and dropped his arms. Glancing around to anything but Aion, he started.

“When I was tuned I- touched something. Something old. After, I heard the Elders say that it was something that was never meant to be touched. But I did. And, Aion I saw- everything. I don’t know how to describe it but, suddenly I just- knew things. I saw so much that when I think of it now I feel like I’m rediscovering it all over again.” He checked to make sure Aion was paying attention and Aion nodded in a way he hoped was encouraging.

“But- I think the important thing to tell you, first, is,” Chrono glanced away again. Aion felt himself tense automatically. “The two of us- we’re brothers.”

The sentence seemed to hang there, dead in the air. When the world didn’t combust in his face like Chrono had apparently expected it to, he checked Aion’s face again. And didn’t find much. If Aion felt much of anything, it was confusion. All that build-up and nerves and all Chrono had done was state the obvious.

“Yes?” What else was Aion supposed to say? ‘Alright. And next will you be revealing your true name to have been ‘Chrono’ all along?’

“No. That’s not- You’re not thinking about it the right way.”

“We’re twins, obviously we’re brothers, we’re all brothers. What are you talking about?” Maybe the Tuning had scrambled Chrono’s mind more than he thought.

“No! I mean- brothers in a different way. The human way.”

Aion had to admit. He didn’t really know much about humans, beyond the basics. He’d never cared about them much. So whatever nuance Chrono was trying for here, Aion missed it.

“Humans! They have families? A mother and a father, and they have kids and it’s very taboo for those kids to- You don’t care. You don’t know what I’m talking about.”

“I’m trying to care!” Aion said, defensively. His expression probably slipped. But it wasn’t like he’d stopped listening. “Let’s just- put a pause on that. For now. I’m more interested in… why you’re bringing up humans at all.”

Now, Chrono looked guilty. This probably wasn’t the order he’d wanted this to go in. He settled down a little.

“Right. Uh. The two of us… We weren’t always Demons. Or,” Chrono winced, gritting his teeth as he backpedaled. “We’ve been Demons, but mostly just for our conscious lives? We weren’t conceived as Demons.”

Which was a surprise. It definitely was that. Aion squirmed a little under the very serious look Chrono was giving him. 

“So… At least as fetuses, we were… human?” he asked.

“Yes.”

Aion looked at his hand. He didn’t feel human. He never had. And as far as he knew, he didn’t look human either. Humans didn’t have purple hair and claws. They were boring that way. Chrono interjected into his thoughts.

“We’re not human now. If someone took a sample and tested every aspect of our genetics from every angle, it would be demon through and through. But we,” Chrono took a breath that sounded shakey, “we could have been. In another life.”

Aion was still contemplating claws and a human's lack of them. “You want to tell me how that happened?”

It took a while. And even then, Chrono wasn’t telling him all of it, Aion could tell. He felt sort of grateful, anyway. He wasn’t sure how much more information he could take. 

The human thing was the least of it. Pandemonium was human. Or, like them, she was and now she wasn’t. She wasn’t even her anymore. Instead of an individual, she was an Elder wet dream. A perfectly aligned consciousness, blended together with each and every one of the women that had come before her. 

The smoothest system imaginable, except for one little black spot.  
“We weren’t supposed to survive. Other women had been taken while pregnant before our- Queen.” Whatever he had been about to say, Chrono didn’t seem able to say it now. “But the fetuses all died when the women became attuned to Pandemonium. Their biology changed on a fundamental level. So if they even noticed she was pregnant, they probably ignored it.” 

Human birth-giving was still a strage, grotesque idea to Aion. He’d think it hard for any kidnappers not to notice a woman’s disproportionate, distended stomach.

“But somehow we just… didn’t. We adapted to the change, somehow, and survived by doing it. I don’t really know how far off we were from being born, but-” Chrono’s voice cut off abruptly, and he flinched backward with a gasp. Aion was on beside him before he knew it.

“Seven months!” Chrono gasped. The color had drained out of his face, and Aion could see sweat beading on his hairline. “She was seven months pregnant when she was kidnapped.”

“What was that!? Are you alright?” Chrono stayed hunched over in Aion’s arms another moment as he caught his breath. It felt like he was leaning his full weight on Aion’s hands. If Aion were to yank them away, Chrono would crumple. When Chrono straightened up again, he grimaced.

“Nothing happened, I just- remembered.”

Which was a lie, obviously. Thinking didn’t make you collapse. At least, it shouldn’t.

“...Go back inside. I think I got the picture for now.”

Chrono huffed a laugh. “You don’t though, is the thing. Not yet at least…” 

They fell silent again. It was another few moments before Aion realized they were still holding hands. 

He didn’t think he was ever going to grasp the full scope of what happened to Chrono. Chrono could barely explain it himself. And, Aion would admit, he wasn't the most empathetic person in the world. Still, it didn’t change things. Not between the two of them, anyway. At least, he didn't want it to. Chrono seemed to think it did.

When Chrono finally looked back up at him, Aion leaned forward. At first it looked like Chrono was going to let it happen. But then, at the last second, he shivered and turned his head away. Aion paused. Then leaned forward anyway and gave Chrono’s forehead a peck anyway. Like they used to do as kids. 

“I’m not sure how much we can actually do right now. Getting some sleep won’t make things worse than they already are.”

Chrono looked like he’d disagree with that, if his face was anything to go by. (And it usually was.) But he also looked tired. And still pale. If he wouldn’t let Aion kiss him, he’d apparently still let Aion bully him into taking care of himself. 

They went back to the ship, and neither of them mentioned the conversation to the others.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This took too long to write, but I wanted it to be good!!! Now I don't have an excuse because half of the world is stuck at home, me included.


End file.
